"I suspect Stark would have left you cryptic notes even if he had known he was going," Yseult offers, a glance aside as Marcus lights his cigarette, retracted as she lifts her cup. As for herself, "I found an entire secret drawer in my predecessor's desk and spent a week tapping every stone in the suite just in case there were more." And then installed a few of her own, but maybe she'll leave that as a fun surprise for her own someday successor.

"How are you both finding it so far? All the power and glamour you'd imagined?" Below them the goats for the next race are paraded to the start, bleating loudly.